I'm trying to keep the kids from naming them until I make sure I'm not going to accidentally kill it. Fish with names seem to hit them so much harder.

Maybe I can get them to name coral...then I have a better chance at keeping it around for a long time.

I have a quick question for you. Is this half a union attached to your reeflo?

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psb245ada6.jpg

If it is, how does it work? No leaks?

Yup. .. its what came with the pump. .. no leaks. .. solid as any connection on my system

Aahhh that would make sense. I didn't know they came with connections like that. I thought you just used the one side of a regular union! lol.

Got a few new residents in my display...almost all of which are tough to catch on camera. Thought I would have some fun seeing if people can figure out what this little guy is off this terrible pic.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps0383304a.jpg

Flame Hawk or Wrasse ............

I'm not even sure what were look at over here :)

First guess got it. I ordered a pair of flame wrasses but sadly the female died while being bagged at J&L. I still got the male. He is beautiful...not out much yet though.

Also got some new shrimp and a bunch of Tangs to fill out the tank. Everyone is looking good so far.

What did I win WHAT DID i WIN :biggrin:

Time for a FTS but wait till u are happy with the pic .I saw that wrasse at JLs and 290 will be his forte and when the girls show up ........well u know

It's been a while since I did an update because I've been struggling with fish issues for a bit now.

Here's a FTS (sorry thought it was less blurry before).
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psa296b92c.jpg

This was from about a 9 days ago...since then I've seen an ICK outbreak, ended up in the hospital for surgery myself, then returned home to find that ick has slowly taken out my Whitecheek tang, my Ebili, my Tomini and my Orange shoulder tang. Fishing for bodies isn't any fun. I pulled several of them and tried to treat in quarantine but it appeared I was too late.

Frustrated at this point. What was most frustrating is that I've had them for a while now and everything was perfect...don't know what might have set them off onto the ICK tangent.

Anyways, coral is coloring up, as is my rock. Got a few more pieces to move from my frag tank once I heal up some more.

so sorry to hear Mark ya fishing for dead fish isnt fun.

Hope you and the tank make a positive turnaround. Sorry to hear about your lost fishes.

Rock is looking mighty puuurdy!

Sorry to hear about those losses. As if a normal fish isn't bad anough. $100's of dollars worth of beautiful tangs is just silly. Hope things start to look up for you.

Thanks everyone...I'm in this for the long haul, so I will rebound. I just plan to go with no new fish for a while.

Sorry about your losses. :(

That's what we like to hear! Keep on reefin' on!

PS. Tank looks peaceful :-)

PPS. Sorry 'bout the deaths :-(

Thats a very unfortunate course of event. Sorry to hear Mark, hopefully soon enough the tank will turn for the better.

Hey Mark, it was great to see you and your family again last week! The new house is beautiful and the tank really makes an impression. Well done! I'm also happy to hear you're doing ok after the surgery. See you in a couple weeks in Florida!

It's been a bit since I updated this thread. Things are doing well for the most part. I am still struggling a little with low ALK so I have decided to get going on proper dosing using my Marine Magic Doser (the one in the box for the last year).

Got three of these bad boys off of Nick at Reefsupplycanada.com (thanks Nick) and plan to work on hooking them up this weekend. They are the 5L versions. Nicely built and should work well for me. I will be using the Fauna Marin Balling lite dosing chems (after a nudge from Myka on how good they are).
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psa5d2f78c.jpg

I also have been going for a while without Carbon and so I finally got the parts in yesterday to hook up my reactors. I'm doing it a little differently than most. I've put in two BRS chambers...the first is a pre-filter and the second is a Carbon Block. It would plug too quickly without the pre-filter.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psa12beedd.jpg

What are you running in your pre-filter?

Standard RO system pre-filter block. I know it will plug more quickly but I can get them pretty cheap.

It's all being run by an MJ900...I might step it up to a 1200 soon though.

you're putting tank water through that? this is instead of running granulated carbon?

i'm amazed the prefilter doesn't clog in a day. how long has it been going?

Haha...about 2 hours. We will see if that ends up being a disaster. I just thought I needed to try as I hate rinsing and getting carbon ready each time. What you are saying is there may be a "fly in the Ointment" of my brilliant idea?

Sediment filter? How many microns? And how long does it last before plugging.

The reason I'm asking is that I run similar carbon and GFO canisters in series with a sponge pre-filter. But mine plugs in about a week, and needs frequent cleaning.

these carbon blocks normally treated tap water. is there any data that shows how well a block like that performs in reducing organics from an aquarium vs say rox 0.8 ?

Carbon drives me nuts as well. Now all I do is pour a small amount into both of my mesh filter socks. That way I can easily rinse the new carbon by pouring clean water thru the sock then add to sump. each week when i clean my socks i just dump the carbon out. It's been so easy.

Not sure how effective that carbon filter is vs granulated tumbling carbon... and that per-filter will clog up realllly fast in my opinion requiring extra unwanted maintenance.

The best way to wash the carbon is when doing water changes... just turn off pumps, swap out the contents (GFO/carbon) then move the hose out of the sump and activate pump in the draining container... Once the water comes out clean, I'm good to go and move on sucking up detritus and other crap which i dont want in the aquarium for the remainder of the water.

I actually use granulated carbon in my canister (similar to a DI refillable filter), same with GFO. Works well. Except my pre-filter sponge does clog up. That's why I was asking.

yes standard carbons in the canister would work well and I've done this. Just curious about using a carbon block. I thought they required high pressures.

I see what you mean; well if the prefilter doenst clog too fast I think you should be ok.

Now I would probably get the biggest micron per-filter possible...

BRS has a 1micron and 5 micron, however I've seen 10 micron which I would recommend over the 5... I can just see a fish stir up the sand and the filter getting clogged super-fast though.

Hmmm...this is why I love Canreef....I probably should have run my idea through here before jumping in.

Not sure the block has to be under pressure but will have to investigate that.

As for how it will work...not sure again (I obviously like flying blind) but my water already looks pretty clear from the prodibio so I was just thinking a little extra polish couldn't hurt.

Many carbon blocks normally used in RO systems are 0.5 micron. Regardless of pre filter, which will clog pretty quick if it's also fine, the carbon block will likely clog up in short order. I'd be interested in how long it goes though, could be wrong. I'd be more inclined to deal with carbon in a bag or container, agitated by flow that's already being produced by return pump or other powerheads rather than a dedicated pump just for the carbon. Don't find rinsing the fresh stuff all that much trouble.

I thought I would throw a few coral pics up on the thread cause that's what I've been working so hard to get started. I was just hand feeding some of my LPS and you'll see it in the pics.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psee7bc532.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps9be1df07.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psa58f1fcc.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps5a82cde4.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps1aabfc5a.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps62a6c0f7.jpg

Wow! Handfeeding is certainly working out for you! I love that first one.

Great pics and did u try the salmon roe yet

They go crazy over it Harry....but its tough to regulate portions so I only give a tiny bit per week.

Thought I would throw a FTS in the thread today. Gonna look a little different soon as I've got a few frags on their way.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps9a4cbab4.jpg

Nice purple rock. I'd say you're ready for a schwack-o-frags.

Yeah, it's funny but my lighting during pictures really makes my rock look purpled up. But the truth is that it's not. It's got an average amount of coraline on it.

As for frags...I already feel like things are getting crowded...so 13 frags will really change things.

Many of them won't make it into the tank anytime soon...they have to go through QT and I'll be gone to MACNA this coming week so not much will happen till I get back.

I will send you some big frags after MACNA. Remind me please. :)